Flood Of Tributes On Fallen Hero, Sign Of National Rebirth – Rights Group

A human rights advocacy group, Centre for Social Justice, Equity and Transparency (CESJET) has said the show of emotion and barrage of tributes that greeted the death of Lt. Col Abu-Ali and six others is a testament that Nigerians recognize Boko Haram and it’s sponsors as a common enemy.

Addressing a press conference in Abuja, Executive Director of CESJET, Joyce Adamu said such tributes and high accolades are the best tonic that every nation needs to give to her heroes.

She however cautioned those she described as mischief makers who are trying to cash in on the death of the soldiers to create disunity amongst Nigeria.

She said, “We are beginning to see that there are people manifesting their loss of humanity and see nothing wrong in attempting to cash in on these tragedies by making insinuations that have no place among right thinking people.

“Most of this depravity is manifested in claims that the Army suffered casualty in the Boko Haram attacks because present conditions are worse than what obtained under former President Goodlcuk Jonathan. One would have expected that the Army and the Ministry of Defence would be allowed to properly investigate what went wrong to account for such casualty instead of jumping to conclusion.

“We observed that these claims are being attributed to people who are not bold enough to reveal their identities and their so called interviews are mostly reported by cloned sites that attempt to pass off as objective, hard working and credible news organisations. To say the least, this is the height of irresponsibility.

She said the deaths of gallants soldiers who laid down their own lives to keep the rest of us safe should not be reduced into parodies and the subject of falsehood.

According to her, those desperate to undermine President Buhari, and the COAS, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai should at least allow the graves of these great ones lie undisturbed by these sacrilegious act of desecrating the memory of the departed.

She said, “in the wake of these national losses and those before them we should rather as a people be asking for who are the people that are helping Boko Haram terrorists to regroup, re-arm and launch attacks on the scales on which they have done between late September and now.

“We should be demanding for the exposure of those that feeds the cells of the terror group with information on troops movement and deployment to the extent that they know when to attack.

“Patriotic citizens that are genuinely interested in the wellbeing and future of the country would be giving encouragement to our troops not to lose courage but to be buoyed by the fallen soldiers in defending their fatherland.”

Adamu called on soldiers to reinvigorate their fighting spirit and to continue to see their undertaking as service to God, nation and humanity.